Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Miss Daisy Once Again

Miss Daisy's mouth has been problematic since I got her. She originally was likely thrown from a car on Seven Mile and perhaps whomever committed such a thing, tried to shoot her close range. Extreme noise is one theory as to the cause of her deafness. Her little paw pads were even burned from walking the blistering hot pavement that August. She is one brave little soul.

A kind farmer found her in the ditch. She screamed at him. Then, neither he nor I knew she was deaf and he thought she was just making sure he heard her. Roger called me about his latest cat find. In the meantime, he accidentally closed her in a shed. He couldn't figure that out, since he thought she'd hear the door closing and get out. Well, that's when I began to wonder if she might be deaf.

I was going to adopt her out but she had health problems. Her mouth was a mess. I went clear to La Center WA to take a trapping job, that ended with me passing out on the hood of my car with a trap set in the middle of the woman's driveway and set badly. I blame it on the Margarita.

The woman had offered a hundred dollars to come help her trap four ferals. I was scheduled to work the next day at Recycled Gardens anyway, for a sale. So drove to La Center the day before, to make some money to pay for Miss Daisy's dental.

The woman was a stranger to me and it's kind of scary sometimes to go that distance and drive to a remote location up a winding road and into the trust of stranger. I liked her instantly. Her husband had died recently of cancer. She had a shrine built for him, with his photo and a candle flickering. Suddenly, she turned to me and said her deceased husband had just informed her she was to take me out to dinner at one of the local casinos. I thought "Hey, great!" And off we went.

The dinner was excellent. But, the problem arose when she asked if I would like to order a drink. I rarely drink. But I said "Yes, thank you very much. I'll have a Margarita."

One Margarita, led to two Margaritas. Can you imagine? A virtual nondrinker consuming two margaritas?

Well, you probably can.

We got back and I was supposed to trap those four cats and earn that money for Miss Daisy. I tried, at least I think I did. I do remember trying to get into her house to use the bathroom, and to find out where I was to sleep that night, and I had locked myself out. I couldn't rouse her, with knocking. I went back to my car, to spend the night inside it, and woke up with someone tapping me on the back, the next morning. I was laid out across the hood of my old Toyota. I'd set only one trap and set it badly, right in the middle of the driveway a few feet from the front of the car. At least, thank god in heaven, there was one cat in the one trap I'd set.

I was totally embarrassed. I was also hung over.

I gave her a trap I felt so bad. And I slunk home red in the face.

Miss Daisy got her dental. She's had to have several teeth extracted twice since, too. The last extractions were last August, when three more very painful teeth were pulled. The strange part is the bad teeth have been mostly on one side. I'm guessing it is the side she hit on, when thrown from the car. Now, she is again making gurgling noises when she meows and again has bad breath and again has sudden jerky breathing when trying to sleep consistent with a cat in pain. She's going in once again tomorrow, to be put under and I'm hoping all the rest of the teeth pulled on that side. They're not going to last anyway.

Miss Daisy had nightmares for a very long time after she came to live with me. She is, however, an optimistic joyous cat. But I know when she is not well, and it's happening again. She's in pain, and yet maintains such a wonderful attitude most of the time.

I hope all goes well in her surgery tomorrow. I love her so much. Electra, my old semi-feral, has been losing weight. Of course this worries me greatly. I had found fleas on her two weeks ago. She's the flea magnet here, the flea canary. So I treated her for fleas, and wormed her, since fleas mean a cat can get tapeworms. There's not been enough time since her worming, to see a weight gain, if that was the cause of her weight loss, but I want her checked anyway.

She's old. I love her.

She does not have diabetes or hyperthyroid because she exhibits no behaviors consistent with either, like extreme thirst. She is not drinking copious amounts of water. Electra has never in her life been overweight either. She is not vomiting and still is eating, but not eating a lot. She does not have diarrhea. What do I worry about, hairballs, kidney failure, lymphoma. I have been treating her for hairballs, but with hairballs, too, a cat starts drinking more, when trying to dislodge a discomfort in the stomach or intestine. Anyhow, she's going to be checked tomorrow also, for teeth problems, and I'll ask the vet to feel her thyroid area and abdomin. She doesn't have bad breath but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a bad tooth.

Update: Miracle at Heatherdale. I was contacted once again, by the South African with the nonprofit to help Ugandan school kids with books, at least I think it's Ugandans, but I could have the country wrong. She lives at Heatherdale and loves cats. But she won't trap them herself, the strays, that is, who need fixed. I am not clear as to why.

She said there were two maybe three unfixed cats again. Over I went, armed and ready. But, in that huge trailer park, crawling in drama and drugs and crime with a few honest tenants thrown in, and with all the already fixed strays out too, I decided the two, or maybe three, could wait until some quiet early morning.

Nonetheless, I stopped by one trailer where I'd gotten a dozen fixed last summer, just to see if he knew the cats the South African was referring to. He knew the big beat up orange male all right. I knew he would.

Then there's a white one with a half length tail, crook at the very end, just like Comets' tail. Comet is from there, one of 16 kittens I netted and hand grabbed in the carport of Trailer 52. The daughter of the old woman who lived there then had gotten herself a kitten at SafeHaven that wasn't fixed. She was a meth head and never did get her fixed, which is one reason I have been at SafeHaven to fix kittens before adopting them out.

The cat must have been responsible for about 40 cats there, by the time I ran into her. Her daughter from one litter looked just like her and had had litters of her own. Well, that cat, now named Molly, is with a friend of mine in Corvallis. She got spayed of course. And I scooped up 16 of her latest offspring and offspring's offspring in the carport there, because the old woman wanted them all gone.

Comet is the only one who did not get a home of the 16. I had back surgery right after fixing Heatherdale that year. And in the end, trying to round up every unfixed cat before surgery, I had to have little kids help me carry traps I was in such pain from my back. That was three years ago. Almost four years ago. Most of the cats I got fixed who stayed there, as fed strays, are still there, or have been taken in by tenants.

A lot of them have disappeared also. I was back again last June and got another 30 fixed, using Albany cat grant money. There's one woman who's never at her trailer, actually quite a few would fit that category. But some tabbies were living under her trailer. Next to her, I asked the guy in that trailer if I could set traps under his carport and he ok'ed it. He said he'd call if the trap was closed, but I never heard from him. I tried calling him. No answer.

I finally went over. There was a cat in the trap, all right. I knocked on his door. To my complete shock, he answered the door stark naked and began railing against cats and said he once ran for mayor of Albany and might again, on the premise all strays should be trapped and dumped in the country. "Ok," I thought to myself, "this guy's a nutcase." It was hard to just talk to him with him stark naked and all, but what I did, was I dressed him in my mind. There may have been some alcohol involved in his behavior that night.

I relocated five tabbies then, fearing for their safety, to Turner. But I trapped two more males that I had no place for, Ronnie, a beautiful silver tabby abandoned by another tenant, and Baby, a long hair black male. These two were fed by a real nice older couple. I love them. The wife of the pair swears like a logger. Or maybe worse than a logger. Or better. Depending on your perspective.

She told me tonight, because I stopped to say hi to them, too, that both Ronnie and Baby have disappeared. I don't like hearing that. Not at all.

The woman across the way from them has a calico she kicked out and is now limping around. The old couple thinks the woman's boyfriend shoots at the cats with a pellet gun.

A few months ago that woman called me, said she had two mothers and two litters and wanted them all fixed and also to volunteer. But when the day arrived, she didn't answer the door. She didn't reply to phone calls either. The old couple told me she got hauled off by the cops. Again. When I finally got ahold of her, she said her father took away the cats and kittens. I asked what he did with them, and she kind of mumbled something but would not really say. Nothing good happened to them, I bet. Then she got the calico and almost immediately kicked her out. So that one needs caught and fixed and she needs out of that horror zone, too.

Then I stopped by the motorcycle rider guy's place. Yes, he knew of the big straggley orange long hair I spoke of, that the South African said wasn't fixed. I got a dozen fixed there at his place, that he feeds, born in his trailer, last June. He came right out to the window of my car and pushed a hundred dollar bill into my very surprised hand. He's a bushy guy. He said "I told you I was going to give you something for helping when I could." I said "Yeah, but everyone says that and nobody ever really does it."

"Well, I'm different," he said with a big grin. "I guess you are," I retorted, with a grin of my own. "Is this real or did you just print it off?" I teased. "That is the real thing," he declared.

I was pretty happy of course. Seems kind of coincidental, given the story I just told of trying to make a cool hundred before Miss Daisy's very first dental and now I get a hundred handed over to me to help out with this dental and I think it's ok and I won't fight that help that is for sure. He got a whole lot more than a hundred bucks worth of labor out of me. At one point, trying to catch his last cat, I hid behind a woodpile across the street, holding a string to yank from the drop trap. I sat there for three hours before the cat I was after ambled home.

I wanted to stop in at the two guys place. I love them, too. So you see, I complain about Heatherdale but I have a lot of friends living there, so my complaints are just complaints. Not worth much.

Nobody keeps promises. And gives somebody something they promised them almost an entire year later, when they don't even have to. It's not like I went out hunting him down and put a gun to his head and said "pay up buddy or die". Ha! Like I could ever do that. Nope. I was just minding my own business hunting down more strays and he showed up at my car window smiling and paying off a very old debt, without me even asking.

What a nice thing happened to me tonight at Heatherdale.

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